Corn soup and a rope: the gifts of Pyongyang for the Year of the Dragon

Kim Jong-un wants to inaugurate his reign with a gesture of grandeur, "but the state’s coffers are empty and the food is finished. So he distributes a skipping rope to children in the country, although at the moment there are 5 degrees below zero. " A source tells AsiaNews of the sad Korean New Year.

Seoul (AsiaNews) - The North Korean government has ordered the distribution in all classes of the country, of a piece of rope an a bowl of corn soup: "In this way, young people who live in the regime celebrated the advent of the new lunar year, under the sign of the Dragon. Jumping rope in the courtyards and drinking warm soup though the temperature was 5 degrees below zero” a that lives on the border between the two Koreas source tells AsiaNews.

The source explains: "Kim Jong-un, heir of the late Kim Jong-il, was hoping to show more generosity to the people to paint him in a charismatic role. But the accounts of the state are disastrous, and the situation of food is even worse. He failed to do anything that he was wanted to do: he wanted to build new buildings and has not done so, he wanted to be a 'good father' of the country and he distributed ropes. "

Roughly 22 million people live in North Korea. Of these, at least 10 million live on less than one U.S. dollar a day, even the 3 million soldiers, the flagship of the Stalinist regime, are begining to feel the privations imposed by the international sanctions against Pyongyang decided after the 2008 military provocations.

A Chinese businessman who lives in the country told the DailyNK: "The extra rations for the New Year arrived, but only to specific areas. The government chose between 'good' and 'bad' citizens, and in any case we are talking about a bowl of rice mixed with other cereals for the lucky ones. The others, got corn soup. The regime has also given some people vouchers to buy dried fish at reduced prices, but the population does not use them: if they have the money, they prefer the black market. "